academic fiction: womack

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critical writing by kenneth Womack

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Page 1: academic fiction: Womack

This is a preview which allows selected pages of this ebook to be viewed without a current Palgrave Connect subscription If you would like access the full ebook for your institution please contact your librarian or use our Library Recommendation Form (wwwpalgraveconnectcompcconnectinforecommendhtml) or you can use the Purchase Copy button to buy a print copy of the title

If you believe you should have subscriber access to the full ebook please check you are accessing Palgrave Connect from within your institutions network or you may need to login via our Institution Athens Login page (wwwpalgraveconnectcompcnamssvcinstitutelogintarget=indexhtml)

Postwar Academic FictionSatire Ethics CommunityKenneth WomackISBN 9780230596757DOI 1010579780230596757previewPalgrave MacmillanPlease respect intellectual property rights

This material is copyright and its use is restricted by our standard site license terms and conditions (see palgraveconnectcompcconnectinfoterms_conditionshtml) If you plan to copy distribute or share in any format including for the avoidanceof doubt posting on websites you need the express prior permission of PalgraveMacmillan To request permission please contact rightspalgravecom

Kenneth Womack

Postwar Academic Fiction

Satire Ethics Community

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Postwar Academic Fiction

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Also by Kenneth Womack

BRITISH BOOK-COLLECTORS AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS (3 volumes co-edited with William Baker)

FELIX HOLT THE RADICAL (co-edited with William Baker)

RECENT WORK IN CRITICAL THEORY 1989-1995 (compiled with William Baker)

TWENTIETH-CENTURY BIBLIOGRAPHY AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM (com-

piled with William Baker)

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Postwar Academic Fiction

Satire Ethics Community

Kenneth Womack Assistant Professor of English Penn State Altoona

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copy Kenneth Womack 2002

All rights reserved No reproduction copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency 90 Tottenham Court Road London W1T 4LP

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2002 by PALGRAVE Houndmills Basingstoke Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world

PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St Martins Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd)

ISBN 0-333-91882-7

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Womack Kenneth Postwar academic fction satire ethics community

Kenneth Womack p cm

Includes bibliographical references (p) and index ISBN 0-333-91882-7 1 College stories English-History and criticism 2

College stories American-History and criticism 3 English fction-20th century-History and criticism 4 American fction-20th century-History and criticism 5 Satire American-History and criticism 6 Satire English-History and criticism 7 Universities and colleges in literature 8 Community in literature 9 Ethics in literature I Title

PR888U5 W66 2001 8239109355-dc21 2001053262

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd Chippenham Wiltshire

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For Neneng

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Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory 1

2 Reading the Heavy Industry of the Mind Ethical Criticism and the Anglo-American Academic Novel 19

3 Negotiating the University Community Lucky Jim and the Politics of Academe 27

4 Scholar Adventurers in Exile Nabokovs Dr Kinbote and Professor Pnin 43

5 Searching for Goodness and the Ethical Self Joyce Carol Oatess The Hungry Ghosts 60

6 The Professoriate in Love David Lodges Academic Trilogy and the Ethics of Romance 77

7 Performing the Academy Alterity and David Mamets Oleanna 98

8 Campus Xenophobia and the Multicultural Project Ishmael Reeds Japanese by Spring 109

9 Academic Nonfction and the Culture Warriors Teaching the Conficts in Gilbert and Gubars Masterpiece Theatre 127

10 Jane Smileys Academic Carnival Rooting for Ethics at Moo U 143

11 Conclusion Ethical Criticism and the Academic Novel beyond the Culture Wars 156

Notes 164

Bibliography 188

Index 202

vii

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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rodo 1

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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2 Posaar Aadem Fo

under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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4 Posaar Aadem Fo

M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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5 rodo

points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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6 Posaar Aadem Fo

canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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10 Posaar Aadem Fo

lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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12 Posaar Aadem Fo

ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Page 2: academic fiction: Womack

Kenneth Womack

Postwar Academic Fiction

Satire Ethics Community

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Postwar Academic Fiction

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Also by Kenneth Womack

BRITISH BOOK-COLLECTORS AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS (3 volumes co-edited with William Baker)

FELIX HOLT THE RADICAL (co-edited with William Baker)

RECENT WORK IN CRITICAL THEORY 1989-1995 (compiled with William Baker)

TWENTIETH-CENTURY BIBLIOGRAPHY AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM (com-

piled with William Baker)

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Postwar Academic Fiction

Satire Ethics Community

Kenneth Womack Assistant Professor of English Penn State Altoona

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copy Kenneth Womack 2002

All rights reserved No reproduction copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency 90 Tottenham Court Road London W1T 4LP

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2002 by PALGRAVE Houndmills Basingstoke Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world

PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St Martins Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd)

ISBN 0-333-91882-7

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Womack Kenneth Postwar academic fction satire ethics community

Kenneth Womack p cm

Includes bibliographical references (p) and index ISBN 0-333-91882-7 1 College stories English-History and criticism 2

College stories American-History and criticism 3 English fction-20th century-History and criticism 4 American fction-20th century-History and criticism 5 Satire American-History and criticism 6 Satire English-History and criticism 7 Universities and colleges in literature 8 Community in literature 9 Ethics in literature I Title

PR888U5 W66 2001 8239109355-dc21 2001053262

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd Chippenham Wiltshire

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For Neneng

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This page intentionally left blank

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Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory 1

2 Reading the Heavy Industry of the Mind Ethical Criticism and the Anglo-American Academic Novel 19

3 Negotiating the University Community Lucky Jim and the Politics of Academe 27

4 Scholar Adventurers in Exile Nabokovs Dr Kinbote and Professor Pnin 43

5 Searching for Goodness and the Ethical Self Joyce Carol Oatess The Hungry Ghosts 60

6 The Professoriate in Love David Lodges Academic Trilogy and the Ethics of Romance 77

7 Performing the Academy Alterity and David Mamets Oleanna 98

8 Campus Xenophobia and the Multicultural Project Ishmael Reeds Japanese by Spring 109

9 Academic Nonfction and the Culture Warriors Teaching the Conficts in Gilbert and Gubars Masterpiece Theatre 127

10 Jane Smileys Academic Carnival Rooting for Ethics at Moo U 143

11 Conclusion Ethical Criticism and the Academic Novel beyond the Culture Wars 156

Notes 164

Bibliography 188

Index 202

vii

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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rodo 1

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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2 Posaar Aadem Fo

under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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4 Posaar Aadem Fo

M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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6 Posaar Aadem Fo

canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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7 rodo

of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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rodo 11

account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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12 Posaar Aadem Fo

ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Page 3: academic fiction: Womack

Postwar Academic Fiction

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Also by Kenneth Womack

BRITISH BOOK-COLLECTORS AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS (3 volumes co-edited with William Baker)

FELIX HOLT THE RADICAL (co-edited with William Baker)

RECENT WORK IN CRITICAL THEORY 1989-1995 (compiled with William Baker)

TWENTIETH-CENTURY BIBLIOGRAPHY AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM (com-

piled with William Baker)

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Postwar Academic Fiction

Satire Ethics Community

Kenneth Womack Assistant Professor of English Penn State Altoona

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copy Kenneth Womack 2002

All rights reserved No reproduction copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency 90 Tottenham Court Road London W1T 4LP

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2002 by PALGRAVE Houndmills Basingstoke Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world

PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St Martins Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd)

ISBN 0-333-91882-7

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Womack Kenneth Postwar academic fction satire ethics community

Kenneth Womack p cm

Includes bibliographical references (p) and index ISBN 0-333-91882-7 1 College stories English-History and criticism 2

College stories American-History and criticism 3 English fction-20th century-History and criticism 4 American fction-20th century-History and criticism 5 Satire American-History and criticism 6 Satire English-History and criticism 7 Universities and colleges in literature 8 Community in literature 9 Ethics in literature I Title

PR888U5 W66 2001 8239109355-dc21 2001053262

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd Chippenham Wiltshire

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For Neneng

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Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory 1

2 Reading the Heavy Industry of the Mind Ethical Criticism and the Anglo-American Academic Novel 19

3 Negotiating the University Community Lucky Jim and the Politics of Academe 27

4 Scholar Adventurers in Exile Nabokovs Dr Kinbote and Professor Pnin 43

5 Searching for Goodness and the Ethical Self Joyce Carol Oatess The Hungry Ghosts 60

6 The Professoriate in Love David Lodges Academic Trilogy and the Ethics of Romance 77

7 Performing the Academy Alterity and David Mamets Oleanna 98

8 Campus Xenophobia and the Multicultural Project Ishmael Reeds Japanese by Spring 109

9 Academic Nonfction and the Culture Warriors Teaching the Conficts in Gilbert and Gubars Masterpiece Theatre 127

10 Jane Smileys Academic Carnival Rooting for Ethics at Moo U 143

11 Conclusion Ethical Criticism and the Academic Novel beyond the Culture Wars 156

Notes 164

Bibliography 188

Index 202

vii

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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rodo 1

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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2 Posaar Aadem Fo

under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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12 Posaar Aadem Fo

ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Page 4: academic fiction: Womack

Also by Kenneth Womack

BRITISH BOOK-COLLECTORS AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS (3 volumes co-edited with William Baker)

FELIX HOLT THE RADICAL (co-edited with William Baker)

RECENT WORK IN CRITICAL THEORY 1989-1995 (compiled with William Baker)

TWENTIETH-CENTURY BIBLIOGRAPHY AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM (com-

piled with William Baker)

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Postwar Academic Fiction

Satire Ethics Community

Kenneth Womack Assistant Professor of English Penn State Altoona

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copy Kenneth Womack 2002

All rights reserved No reproduction copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency 90 Tottenham Court Road London W1T 4LP

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2002 by PALGRAVE Houndmills Basingstoke Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world

PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St Martins Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd)

ISBN 0-333-91882-7

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Womack Kenneth Postwar academic fction satire ethics community

Kenneth Womack p cm

Includes bibliographical references (p) and index ISBN 0-333-91882-7 1 College stories English-History and criticism 2

College stories American-History and criticism 3 English fction-20th century-History and criticism 4 American fction-20th century-History and criticism 5 Satire American-History and criticism 6 Satire English-History and criticism 7 Universities and colleges in literature 8 Community in literature 9 Ethics in literature I Title

PR888U5 W66 2001 8239109355-dc21 2001053262

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02

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For Neneng

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Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory 1

2 Reading the Heavy Industry of the Mind Ethical Criticism and the Anglo-American Academic Novel 19

3 Negotiating the University Community Lucky Jim and the Politics of Academe 27

4 Scholar Adventurers in Exile Nabokovs Dr Kinbote and Professor Pnin 43

5 Searching for Goodness and the Ethical Self Joyce Carol Oatess The Hungry Ghosts 60

6 The Professoriate in Love David Lodges Academic Trilogy and the Ethics of Romance 77

7 Performing the Academy Alterity and David Mamets Oleanna 98

8 Campus Xenophobia and the Multicultural Project Ishmael Reeds Japanese by Spring 109

9 Academic Nonfction and the Culture Warriors Teaching the Conficts in Gilbert and Gubars Masterpiece Theatre 127

10 Jane Smileys Academic Carnival Rooting for Ethics at Moo U 143

11 Conclusion Ethical Criticism and the Academic Novel beyond the Culture Wars 156

Notes 164

Bibliography 188

Index 202

vii

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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rodo 1

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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2 Posaar Aadem Fo

under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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12 Posaar Aadem Fo

ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Page 5: academic fiction: Womack

Postwar Academic Fiction

Satire Ethics Community

Kenneth Womack Assistant Professor of English Penn State Altoona

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copy Kenneth Womack 2002

All rights reserved No reproduction copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency 90 Tottenham Court Road London W1T 4LP

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2002 by PALGRAVE Houndmills Basingstoke Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world

PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St Martins Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd)

ISBN 0-333-91882-7

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Womack Kenneth Postwar academic fction satire ethics community

Kenneth Womack p cm

Includes bibliographical references (p) and index ISBN 0-333-91882-7 1 College stories English-History and criticism 2

College stories American-History and criticism 3 English fction-20th century-History and criticism 4 American fction-20th century-History and criticism 5 Satire American-History and criticism 6 Satire English-History and criticism 7 Universities and colleges in literature 8 Community in literature 9 Ethics in literature I Title

PR888U5 W66 2001 8239109355-dc21 2001053262

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd Chippenham Wiltshire

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For Neneng

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Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory 1

2 Reading the Heavy Industry of the Mind Ethical Criticism and the Anglo-American Academic Novel 19

3 Negotiating the University Community Lucky Jim and the Politics of Academe 27

4 Scholar Adventurers in Exile Nabokovs Dr Kinbote and Professor Pnin 43

5 Searching for Goodness and the Ethical Self Joyce Carol Oatess The Hungry Ghosts 60

6 The Professoriate in Love David Lodges Academic Trilogy and the Ethics of Romance 77

7 Performing the Academy Alterity and David Mamets Oleanna 98

8 Campus Xenophobia and the Multicultural Project Ishmael Reeds Japanese by Spring 109

9 Academic Nonfction and the Culture Warriors Teaching the Conficts in Gilbert and Gubars Masterpiece Theatre 127

10 Jane Smileys Academic Carnival Rooting for Ethics at Moo U 143

11 Conclusion Ethical Criticism and the Academic Novel beyond the Culture Wars 156

Notes 164

Bibliography 188

Index 202

vii

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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rodo 1

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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2 Posaar Aadem Fo

under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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4 Posaar Aadem Fo

M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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6 Posaar Aadem Fo

canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Page 6: academic fiction: Womack

copy Kenneth Womack 2002

All rights reserved No reproduction copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency 90 Tottenham Court Road London W1T 4LP

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Womack Kenneth Postwar academic fction satire ethics community

Kenneth Womack p cm

Includes bibliographical references (p) and index ISBN 0-333-91882-7 1 College stories English-History and criticism 2

College stories American-History and criticism 3 English fction-20th century-History and criticism 4 American fction-20th century-History and criticism 5 Satire American-History and criticism 6 Satire English-History and criticism 7 Universities and colleges in literature 8 Community in literature 9 Ethics in literature I Title

PR888U5 W66 2001 8239109355-dc21 2001053262

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd Chippenham Wiltshire

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For Neneng

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Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory 1

2 Reading the Heavy Industry of the Mind Ethical Criticism and the Anglo-American Academic Novel 19

3 Negotiating the University Community Lucky Jim and the Politics of Academe 27

4 Scholar Adventurers in Exile Nabokovs Dr Kinbote and Professor Pnin 43

5 Searching for Goodness and the Ethical Self Joyce Carol Oatess The Hungry Ghosts 60

6 The Professoriate in Love David Lodges Academic Trilogy and the Ethics of Romance 77

7 Performing the Academy Alterity and David Mamets Oleanna 98

8 Campus Xenophobia and the Multicultural Project Ishmael Reeds Japanese by Spring 109

9 Academic Nonfction and the Culture Warriors Teaching the Conficts in Gilbert and Gubars Masterpiece Theatre 127

10 Jane Smileys Academic Carnival Rooting for Ethics at Moo U 143

11 Conclusion Ethical Criticism and the Academic Novel beyond the Culture Wars 156

Notes 164

Bibliography 188

Index 202

vii

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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rodo 1

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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2 Posaar Aadem Fo

under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Page 7: academic fiction: Womack

For Neneng

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Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory 1

2 Reading the Heavy Industry of the Mind Ethical Criticism and the Anglo-American Academic Novel 19

3 Negotiating the University Community Lucky Jim and the Politics of Academe 27

4 Scholar Adventurers in Exile Nabokovs Dr Kinbote and Professor Pnin 43

5 Searching for Goodness and the Ethical Self Joyce Carol Oatess The Hungry Ghosts 60

6 The Professoriate in Love David Lodges Academic Trilogy and the Ethics of Romance 77

7 Performing the Academy Alterity and David Mamets Oleanna 98

8 Campus Xenophobia and the Multicultural Project Ishmael Reeds Japanese by Spring 109

9 Academic Nonfction and the Culture Warriors Teaching the Conficts in Gilbert and Gubars Masterpiece Theatre 127

10 Jane Smileys Academic Carnival Rooting for Ethics at Moo U 143

11 Conclusion Ethical Criticism and the Academic Novel beyond the Culture Wars 156

Notes 164

Bibliography 188

Index 202

vii

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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2 Posaar Aadem Fo

under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory 1

2 Reading the Heavy Industry of the Mind Ethical Criticism and the Anglo-American Academic Novel 19

3 Negotiating the University Community Lucky Jim and the Politics of Academe 27

4 Scholar Adventurers in Exile Nabokovs Dr Kinbote and Professor Pnin 43

5 Searching for Goodness and the Ethical Self Joyce Carol Oatess The Hungry Ghosts 60

6 The Professoriate in Love David Lodges Academic Trilogy and the Ethics of Romance 77

7 Performing the Academy Alterity and David Mamets Oleanna 98

8 Campus Xenophobia and the Multicultural Project Ishmael Reeds Japanese by Spring 109

9 Academic Nonfction and the Culture Warriors Teaching the Conficts in Gilbert and Gubars Masterpiece Theatre 127

10 Jane Smileys Academic Carnival Rooting for Ethics at Moo U 143

11 Conclusion Ethical Criticism and the Academic Novel beyond the Culture Wars 156

Notes 164

Bibliography 188

Index 202

vii

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Page 9: academic fiction: Womack

Contents

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory 1

2 Reading the Heavy Industry of the Mind Ethical Criticism and the Anglo-American Academic Novel 19

3 Negotiating the University Community Lucky Jim and the Politics of Academe 27

4 Scholar Adventurers in Exile Nabokovs Dr Kinbote and Professor Pnin 43

5 Searching for Goodness and the Ethical Self Joyce Carol Oatess The Hungry Ghosts 60

6 The Professoriate in Love David Lodges Academic Trilogy and the Ethics of Romance 77

7 Performing the Academy Alterity and David Mamets Oleanna 98

8 Campus Xenophobia and the Multicultural Project Ishmael Reeds Japanese by Spring 109

9 Academic Nonfction and the Culture Warriors Teaching the Conficts in Gilbert and Gubars Masterpiece Theatre 127

10 Jane Smileys Academic Carnival Rooting for Ethics at Moo U 143

11 Conclusion Ethical Criticism and the Academic Novel beyond the Culture Wars 156

Notes 164

Bibliography 188

Index 202

vii

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Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Page 10: academic fiction: Womack

Acknowledgments

A project of this magnitude and scope only succeeds with the en-

couragement and guidance of an ethical community of friends and colleagues I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Craig S Abbott Janice M Arwood Carol ookhamer Richard G Caram Ildik de Papp Carrington Arra M Garab Susan Gubar James L Harner Thomas R Liska Matthew T Masucci Harrison T Meserole Dinty W Moore Neal R Norrick William P Williams Michael W Wolfe and Katherine L Wright I would also like to thank Todd Davis James M Decker and Julian Wolfreys for their assistance with my research and with the direction of this study I am particu-

larly grateful for the scholarly experience provided by my students in a Summer 2000 seminar at Penn State Altoona on Reading the Academic Novel The fnancial assistance of Dean Jerrold H ar of Northern Illinois University in the form of a fellowship greatly expedited the fruition of my project as did the various travel grants and course-load reductions afforded to me by Kjell Meling Penn State Altoonas Associate Dean and Director of Academic Affairs and the Altoona College Advisory oard I owe a special debt of thanks to William aker David Gorman and John Knapp for their tire-

less enthusiasm for my work and their many generous efforts on behalf of this volume

viii

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1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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Page 11: academic fiction: Womack

rodo 1

1 Introduction Ethical Criticism and Postwar Literary Theory

Every decoding is another encoding - David Lodge Small World

How do academic fctions create meaning and value through their satirical narratives in a critical era that bemoans the cultural relshy

evance of poststructuralist hermeneutics and proclaims the death of literature in a postmodern world As scholars engage in debate over the social and pedagogical value of critical projects such as deconstruction to contemporary institutions of higher learning acashy

demic novels enjoy frequent publication during the latter half of this century an era marked by the increasing accessibility of postsecondary education Academic novels often satirize and problematize the contradictions and sociological nuances of camshy

pus life yet critics of academic fction - despite the remarkable growth and evolution of the AngloshyAmerican academic novel as a literary genre since the 1950s - neglect to address the satiric ethos that undergirds the genres thematic landscape The scathing represhy

sentation of professors and institutions alike in these fctions as fgures of deceit duplicity and falsehood moreover remains unexamined in the scholarly monographs devoted to the study of the academic novel

The brand of satire endemic to the genre of academic fction - a pejorative poetics that I will trace through analyses of specifc works in subsequent chapters of this study - fnds its genesis in the disillusionment that marks the professional lives of academics in the twentieth century Like their forebears in the academic fctions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who languished

1

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under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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2 Posaar Aadem Fo

under the specter of Oxbridge modern academic characters suffer from the whimsy of global economic slumps and university budget cuts the fashionable nature of structuralist and poststructuralist litshy

erary criticism growing social and racial divisions on college campuses and an increasingly hostile academic job market among a host of other issues The enormous and expanding oevre of acashy

demic fction confronts its readers with a variety of fgures who encounter similar dilemmas - characters either satirically proffered as amoral selfshyserving human forms or as larger coldly manipulashy

tive and omnipresent institutional machines By using the interpretive strategies established by the ongoing project of ethical criticism I will reveal the manner in which the practitioners of AngloshyAmerican university fction utilize academic characters and institutional themes as a means for exploring through the deliberately broad strokes of their satirical prose the ethical and philosophical questions endemic to their genre that impinge upon such issues as culture morality romance knowledge and commitment1

Like the characters in academic fctions who fnd personal and vocational dissatisfaction within the prevailing power structures of modern institutions of higher learning many literary critics during this same era searched for interpretive methodologies that could provide them with culturally relevant modes of interpretation The recent incarnation of ethical criticism functions both as a response to the nihilism of poststructuralist theoretical concerns such as deconstruction and postmodernism as well as to the growing scholshy

arly interest in the humanistic interpretation of literary works2 By the midshy1980s deconstructionist Marxist and postmodernist methshy

odologies appeared to reach their infuential apex prompting a critical backlash from a variety of quarters A brief survey of literary theorys competing voices demonstrates the shape and character of the varishy

ous contemporary perspectives regarding ethical criticism and its (often controversial) place in the theoretical project As David Parker remarks in Ehs Theory ad he Novel (1994) The irresistible expansive moment of postshystructuralism in the 1970s and early 1980s has suppressed some discursive possibilities which constituted as we partly are by various religious and humanistic traditions we stand in abiding need of and are poorer without The possibilities I mean are evaluative and especially ethical ones (3-4) With the evolution of a number of new socially and culturally relevant modes of critical thought - including for example gender studies historical criticism and other forms of cultural criticism - poststructuralist

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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schools of interpretation deconstruction in particular increasingly endured charges of antihumanism and the development of antitheory movements that persist in the present The emergence of these movements moreover underscores the value of deriving a critical parlance that accounts for ethical issues and their considershy

able roles in the creation and interpretation of literary works3

The current reevaluation of poststructuralisms theoretical hegeshy

mony fnds its origins in the initial critical responses that often accompanied the promulgation of the trends various submovements This is of course not at all unusual for new critical paradigms inevitably blossom amidst a fury of debate JeanshyFranois Lyotards widely acknowledged postmodernist manifesto The Posmoder Codo a Repor o Koaledge (1979) for example enjoyed its publication almost concomitantly with the appearance of Gerald Graffs Lerare agas self Lerary deas Moder Soey (1979) a volume that problematizes the myth of the postmodern breakshy

through as a literary and critical movement destined to implode because of postmodernisms dependence upon its own extreme elements of skepticism alienation and selfshyparody As an historical response to modernist conceptions of art as a panacea for the chaos of the early twentieth century postmodernism posits that art lacks the required faculties of consolation to assuage the human condition in the postindustrial world Postmodernism signifes that the nightshy

mare of history as modernist esthetic and philosophical traditions have defned history has overtaken modernism itself Graff writes If history lacks value pattern and rationally intelligible meanshy

ing he continues then no exertions of the shaping ordering imagination can be anything but a refuge from truth (32 55) Rather than asserting its utter impossibility in the postmodern world Graffs search for truth in literature and criticism underscores one of the principal arguments emanating from the practitioners of ethical criticism that literature and its interpretation do offer readers the possibilities for locating truth and defning value despite the persisshy

tence of a contemporary landscape that seems to rest upon a skeptical and chaotic social foundation4 Postmodern literature Graff remarks poses in an especially acute fashion the critical problem raised by all experimental art does this art represent a criticism of the distorted aspects of modern life or a mere addition to it (55) The criticism that postmodernist literature evokes likewise subverts the normative roles of meaning and value in literary interpretation

In his controversial volume Agas Deosro (1989) John

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M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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4 Posaar Aadem Fo

M Ellis proffers a similar argument regarding deconstruction and what he considers the textual violence that it inficts against the practice of literary criticism Further Ellis questions the nature of the deconstructionist argument regarding the indeterminacy of language that Jacques Derrida ascribes to Western philosophy and culture According to Derrida this abiding tendency toward ethnocentrism lies in the linguistic construct of logocentrism - a cultural bias that presupposes speech acts over the possibility of a determinant reality5 Like many of deconstructions other detracshy

tors Ellis seizes upon the inability of deconstructions proponents including Derrida himself to make explicit the critical projects own terminology and the manner in which it functions to create meanshy

ing6 As Ellis notes There is a strong tendency for Derridas advocates to object that a demand for clarity begs the question at issue and violates the spirit of the deconstructive enterprise (33) What then is the aim of the deconstructive project How does it provide knowlshy

edge and meaning for its advocates as well as for readers Although Derridas expositors argue that deconstruction endeavors

to undermine traditional views of philosophy and literature by exploding the logocentric myth of the determinant communicative powers of language Ellis suggests that deconstruction emanates instead from a remarkably conservative position The ideas that it attempts to deconstruct through the privileged status that they enjoy during the actual process of being deconstructed fnd themselves imbued with a state of permanence by virtue of the process rather than being undermined in favor of a more progressive mode of thinking Deconstructive writings tend to go over the same ground and use the same vocabulary without substantial modifcation or fresh analysis on each occasion Ellis writes These are not the signs of a genuinely open intellectually probing new movement (89) In this way deconstruction reveals its fundamental inability to construct any form of coherent meaning although it does as Ellis notes provide for the production of a multiplicity of ambiguous possibilities for interpretation (127) While deconstructions approach to language allows for a host of coexistent meanings to modify a particular sign - for the signifed to be the object of so many disparate signifers -

it cannot deliver truth and knowledge through the production of an infnite number of conficting assertions7 Ellis argues that such a process results in a windowless monad that cannot communicate with any other Deconstruction he concludes shuts its eyes to how inquiry actually proceeds - through the clash of differing viewshy

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5 rodo

points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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6 Posaar Aadem Fo

canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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8 Posaar Aadem Fo

meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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5 rodo

points and the consequent winnowing out of those that cannot hold up (129)

The commentaries produced by Graff and Ellis illustrate the clishy

mate of uncertainty and reassessment that critical theory endured during the 1980s - an era that saw the publication of a number of texts eschewing critical nihilism and arguing in favor of ethically forceful and socially relevant means of interpretation Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaelss infuential 1982 essay Against Theory radically underscores the foundations for this sentiment Knapp and Michaels challenge the belief that the theoretical project truly suppleshy

ments the act of literary interpretation and the crux of their argument rests upon the validity of the notion of critical intentionality If critical theory indeed offers readers a valuable guide to prescient literary interpretation they argue then theory effectively serves its purpose But as soon as we recognize that there are no theoretical choices to be made in order to achieve meaningful interpretations they caution then the point of theory vanishes Theory loses (18) Knapp and Michaels further suggest that the theoretical imshy

pulse only separates those essential properties that should remain inseparable during the practice of literary criticism on the ontoshy

logical side meaning from intention language from speech acts on the epistemological side knowledge from true belief they write (29) In short their argument against the theoretical project takes issue with the machinery of critical theory - the very mechanism that Ellis laments in Agas Deosro because it succeeds in producing an infnite number of conficting assertions rather than the elements of meaning and value that readers ultimately seek

While scholars such as Knapp and Michaels problematize the funshy

damental nature of the theoretical project critics such as Peter J Rabinowitz Christopher Norris and Tobin Siebers offer texts that reassess the place of critical theory in an era absorbed with the politics of literary interpretation and the ethical value of poststructuralism to narrative study Rabinowitzs Before Readg Narrave Coveos ad he Pols of erpreao (1987) endeavors to explain the manner in which any interpretive practice is always politically engaged Indeed Rabinowitz remarks one of the functions of ideology -

and literature helps in this function - is to naturalize these power relationships (5) Rabinowitz reveals the ways in which the act of reading inevitably impinges upon such politically and emotionally charged issues as class race and gender - formidable challenges to the coherent interpretation of literary works In his discussion of

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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canon formation and detective fction Rabinowitz notes that texts by female authors for instance often become marginalized because of a masculine language bias that through its encoding denies access to female writers and readers Rabinowitz argues that only the alteration of our existing evaluative procedures can provide an effective remedy for such a dilemma Another course of action suggests itself he writes to teach ourselves to read in new ways that are selfshy

conscious about how interpretation itself can be ideological and ways that can thus help us to make the most of the rich literary heritage that has been passed down to us (230)

In Tr h ad he Ehs of Crsm (1994) Norris examines the ways in which literary theory must redefne itself in a contemporary hermeneutic circle concerned with epistemological rigor and cultural critique Norris - himself an admitted apologist for deconstruction during the 1980s - argues that literary theorists can implement a series of correctives that may yet infuse the theoretical project with muchshyneeded doses of pragmatism and social relevance8 Norris charshy

acterizes this paradigmatic shift as the retreat from high theory as an era in which a great deal depends on where one happens to be in terms of the wider socioshypolitical culture and the local opportunities for linking theory and practice in a meaningful way (1 5) By providing readers with the means to establish vital interconnections between texts and the divergent heterogeneous community in which we live we can empower the theoretical project with the capacity to produce socially and culturally relevant crishy

tiques This way of reading Norris writes allows critics to look to the prospect of a better more enlightened alternative where the difference ah each and every subject is envisaged as providing the common ground the measure of shared humanity whereby to transcend such differences beaee ethnic and national ties (94) In this way Norris posits an ethics of criticism that selfshyconsciously assesses the theoretical presuppositions undergirding the moral charshy

acter of contemporary hermeneutics9

In one of the more forceful ethical critiques of literary theory The Ehs of Crsm (1988) Siebers identifes the crisis that confronts modern criticism - an interpretive dilemma that derives in part from an ethical reaction to the perceived violence of the critical act (15) He further argues that an ethical approach to literary study requires critics to engage their subjects selfshyconsciously with sustained attention to the potential consequences of their interpreshy

tive choices The ethics of criticism involves critics in the process

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of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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10 Posaar Aadem Fo

lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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12 Posaar Aadem Fo

ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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7 rodo

of making decisions and of studying how these choices affect the lives of fellow critics writers students and readers as well as our ways of defning literature and human nature Siebers ascribes the aforementioned crisis in criticism to a linguistic paradox that inshy

evitably problematizes critical practice Modern literature has its own cast of characters he writes It speaks in a discourse largely concerned with issues of language but behind its defnitions of language lie ideals of human character (10) Siebers argues that acknowledging the place of ethics in critical theory affords practishy

tioners of the discipline with the autonomy to offer relevant conclusions about literary texts and their considerable social and ideological import Literary criticism cannot endure without the freedom to make judgments Siebers notes and modern theory urgently needs to regain the capacity to decide (41) The ability to render sound moral interpretations then provides the foundation for an ethical criticism that fully engages the remarkably human nature of literary study Such a reading methodology allows for the selfshyconscious reassessment of our evaluative procedures and their potential for the production of meaningful critiques As Siebers concludes To criticize ethically brings the critic into a special feld of action the feld of human conduct and belief concerning the human (1)

Volumes such as Wayne C Booths The Compay We Keep a Ehs of Fo (1988) and Martha C Nussbaums Loves Koaledge Essays o Phlosophy ad Lerare (1990) demonstrate the interpretive power of ethical criticism as well as the value of its critical machinery to scholarly investigations regarding the nature of literary character the cultural landscapes of fction and the ethical motivations of satire - the narrative maneuver that Booth ascribes to our desire to make and remake ourselves (14) Critics such as Booth and Nussbaum avoid the textual violence of censorship to advocate instead a form of criticism that explores the moral sensibilities that inform works of art In Loves Koaledge Nussbaum illustrates the nature of ethishy

cal criticisms recent emergence as a viable interpretive paradigm Questions about justice about wellshybeing and social distribution about moral realism and relativism about the nature of rationality about the concept of the person about the emotions and desires about the role of luck in human life - all these and others are debated from many sides with considerable excitement and even urgency she writes (169-70) In its desire to examine the ethical nature of these artistic works ethical criticism seeks to create a

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8 Posaar Aadem Fo

meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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10 Posaar Aadem Fo

lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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rodo 11

account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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12 Posaar Aadem Fo

ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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meaningful bond between the life of the narrative and the life of the reader Although ethical criticism hardly functions as a convenshy

tional interpretive paradigm in the tradition of Marxist Lacanian or gender textual readings it serves effectively nevertheless as a selfshyrefexive means for critics to explain the contradictory emoshy

tions and problematic moral stances that often mask complex and fully realized literary characters Ethical criticism provides its pracshy

titioners moreover with the capacity to posit socially relevant interpretations by celebrating the Aristotelian qualities of living well and fourishing In this way ethical criticism evokes the particushy

larly human character of literature that Siebers extols the merits of in The Ehs of Crsm

In The Reader he Tex he Poem he Trasaoal Theory of he Lerary Work (1978) Louise M Rosenblatt supplies ethical critics with an interpretational matrix for explaining the motives of readers and their transactions with literary texts10 Rosenblatt identifes two different types of reading strategies - aesthetic reading in which the reader devotes particular attention to what occurs drg the actual reading event and nonaesthetic reading a reading strategy in which the reader focuses attention upon the traces of knowledge and data that will remain afer the event Rosenblatt designates the latter strategy as a kind of efferent reading in which readers prishy

marily interest themselves in what will be derived materially from the experience (23-5)11 Efferent readers refect upon the verbal symbols in literature what the symbols designate what they may be contributing to the end result that [the reader] seeks - the inforshy

mation the concepts the guides to action that will be left with [the reader] when the reading is over (27) Booth argues that ethical criticism functions as a methodology for distinguishing the efferent freight that results from this reading strategy (14) Rosenblatt describes the act of reading itself - whether aesthetic or nonaesthetic - as a transaction that derives from the peculiar array of experiences that defne the readers persona Each reader brings to the transaction not only a specifc past life and literary history not only a repertory of internalized codes but also a very active present with all its preoccupations anxieties questions and aspirations she writes (144) This recognition of the complexity of the reading transaction underscores the deep interconnections between readers and the human communities in which they live and seek personal fulfllment

Rosenblatt argues that the transaction of reading involves laying bare the assumptions about human beings and society and the

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hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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10 Posaar Aadem Fo

lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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9 rodo

hierarchy of values that govern the world derived from the text (149-50) a conclusion regarding the ethical value of art in the human community that John Gardner illuminates in his infuential volume O Moral Fo (1978) He argues that literary art should offer readers the opportunity for receiving knowledge from its pages the possibility - rather than the didactic requirement - of emerging from a reading experience with a heightened sense of communal awareness Gardner writes

We recognize art by its careful thoroughly honest search for and analysis of values It is not didactic because instead of teaching by authority and force it explores openshymindedly to learn what it should teach It clarifes like an experiment in a chemistry lab and confrms As a chemists experiment tests the laws of nature and dramatically reveals the truth or falsity of scientifc hypotheses moral art tests values and rouses trustworthy feelshy

ings about the better and the worse in human action (19)

The role of the ethical critic then involves the articulation of a given texts ability to convey notions of knowledge and universal good to its readers whether through the auspices of allegory satire morality plays haiku or any other fctive means of representation12

In Gardners estimation ethical critics can only accomplish this end through the fomentation of understanding in their readership Knowledge may or may not lead to belief he writes But undershy

standing always does since to believe one understands a complex situation is to form at least a tentative theory of how one ought to behave in it (139) Thus ethical criticism examines the ways in which literary characters respond to the divergent forces they encounter in the fctional landscapes that they occupy Their human behaviors and actions provide the interpretive basis for moral refection and conclusion

As Gardner notes in O Moral Fo however practitioners of ethical criticism must invariably confront the specter of censorshy

ship a dangerous commodity rooted in the human tendency to instruct without regard for the plurality of competing value systems at work in both the theoretical realm of literary criticism and the larger world of humankind Didacticism he cautions inevitably simplifes morality and thus misses it (137)13 Similarly critics must avoid the perils of attempting to establish models of behavior and codifed moral standards of acceptability for such practices inevitably

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10 Posaar Aadem Fo

lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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lead to the textual injustice of censorship Gardner writes I would not claim that even the worst bad art should be outlawed since morality by compulsion is a fools morality (106) Despite his own admonitions to the contrary in O Moral Fo - and because of the dearth of genuine scholarly wisdom inherent in his study of moral criticism - Gardner himself nevertheless trolls dangerously close to the shores of censorship when he speaks of carrying out arts proper work art destroys only evil he argues If art destroys good mistaking it for evil then that art is false an error it reshy

quires denunciation (15) Such a proposition inevitably leads to the establishment of singular standards of good and evil in the heterogeneous pluralistic spheres of criticism and human reality14

Can ehal critics in good conscience operate from superior posishy

tions of moral privilege and arrogant didacticism Understanding the place of moral philosophy in the latest incarshy

nation of ethical criticism offers a means for exploring this dilemma Bernard Williamss Ehs ad he Lms of Phlosophy (1985) for instance discusses the ways in which the tenets of moral philososhy

phy provide a context for us to recreate ethical life in the skeptical world of contemporary Western culture (vii) In addition to examshy

ining the Johnsonian question of how to live Williams devotes particular attention to assessing the role of the ethical critic Given people who are in some general sense committed to thinking in ethical terms how should they think he asks Are their ethical thoughts sound (71) The issue of a valid ethical criticism itself poses a spurious philosophical quandary for it requires the critic to defne standards of moral correctness or as Williams concludes to dispense with establishing them altogether An ethical theory is a theoretical account of what ethical thought and practice are he writes which either implies a general test for the correctness of basic ethical beliefs and principles or else implies that there cannot be such a test (72) Williams suggests that critics can only surmount this dilemma by interpreting a given set of events from an empathetic position and moreover through their ability to arrive at shared ethical judgments (97) In this way ethical critics and moral philshy

osophers alike can implement a form of ethical practice that allows for the refexive process of critical contemplation a selfshyconscious methodology for critically articulating the pluralistic nuances of that which constitutes a shared sense of moral correctness15

In addition to questioning the nature of our communal sense of ethical propriety moral philosophers such as Williams attempt to

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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account for the motives of those critics who dare to engage in the interpretation of human values Such critics must assume the risks - whether or not they employ an equitable and pluralistic system of evaluation - of impinging upon the current direction of the philoshy

sophical conversation regarding human ethics Critical refection should seek for as much shared understanding as it can fnd on any issue and use any ethical material that in the context of the refecshy

tive discussion makes some sense and commands some loyalty Williams notes although the only serious enterprise is living and we have to live after the refection (117) For this reason the prinshy

ciples of moral philosophy charge ethical critics with the maintenance of a sense of free intellectual discourse in addition to obliging them to render sound moral conclusions16 We should not try to seal determinate values into future society he warns for to try to transmit free inquiry and the refective consciousness is to transmit something more than nothing and something that demands some forms of life more rather than others (173)

Ethical criticism endeavors as a matter of course to communishy

cate the meaning of this something and its greater social relevance through the interpretation of literary works In The Compay We Keep Booth offers an expansive account of ethical criticism and its potential for literary study while also attempting to allay any fears that his heuristic rests upon dogmatic foundations Booth affords particular attention to the range of hermeneutic functions that ethical criticism performs as well as to its unfortunate lack of clarity as an interpretive paradigm

We can no longer pretend that ethical criticism is passe It is practiced everywhere often surreptitiously often guiltily and often badly partly because it is the most diffcult of all critical modes but partly because we have so little serious talk about why it is important what purposes it serves and how it might be done well (19)

Booth notes that ethical criticisms opponents often misread the paradigms intent as didactic in nature Instead Booth argues ethishy

cal criticism attempts to describe the encounters of a storyshytellers ethos with that of the reader or listener Ethical critics need not begin with the intent to evaluate but their descriptions will always entail appraisals of the value of what is being described In this way Booth supports a refexive interpretational methodology an

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12 Posaar Aadem Fo

ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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12 Posaar Aadem Fo

ethical criticism that allows for the recognition of the interconnections between the reading experience and the life of the reader Ethical criticism acknowledges moreover the powerful factors of language and ideology in its textual assessments There are no neutral ethical terms Booth writes and a fully responsible ethical criticism will make explicit those appraisals that are implicit whenever a reader or listener reports on stories about human beings in action (8-9)

Booth defnes these instances of appraisal - these practical applications of ethical criticism - as acts of coduction referential moments in which critics compare their reading experiences with the conclusions of others17 Like Siebers who argues that the heart of ethics is the desire for community (202) Booth notes that the act of judgment requires a community of trustworthy friends and colleagues (72)18 Coduction in Booths schema valorizes the refexive relationship that develops between texts and their readers as well as the equally refexive manner in which texts postulate meaning The question of whether value is in the poem or in the reader is radically and permanently ambiguous requiring two answers Booth writes Of course the value is not in there aally until it is actualized by the reader But of course it could not be actualized if it were not there poeal in the poem (89) Booth also notes ethical criticisms pluralistic imperatives and their value to the unshy

derstanding and operation of ideological paradigms19 In his analysis of feminist criticism for example Booth discusses the ways in which the feminist challenge derives from fundamental ethical dilemshy

mas inherent in the construction of literary texts Every literary work implies either that women can enter its imaginative world as equals or that they cannot - that instead they must in reading decide whether or not to enter a world in which men are a privishy

leged center (387) As Booth reveals feminist criticism itself functions as type of ethical criticism a means of literary interpretation that seeks to repair an abiding social injustice that through its misogyny problematizes the lives of the larger community of readers20

In Cogees of Vale Aler ave Perspeves for Cral Theory (1988) Barbara Herrnstein Smith offers an appraisal of an evaluashy

tive criticisms propensity for determining meaning and value in literary study Like Booth Smith notes the capacity of an ethical criticism to address the concerns of ideological paradigms although she remains skeptical that ethical criticism can function as a fully realized interpretive methodology Recent moves in the direction of opening the question of value and evaluation in the literary

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